One approach to providing true time delay hardware involves using a plurality of low-loss fiber optic waveguides, in which the length of each fiber optic waveguide is configured to achieve a particular delay. A large N×M switch matrix is used to couple light into one of the fiber optic waveguides based on a desired time delay. While this approach is simple from the perspective of controlling fiber lengths, extreme burden is placed on design and fabrication of the switch matrix. Further, the switch matrix and fiber paths result in true time delay hardware having a large footprint and increased weight.